Reflexive modernization and the third way: the impasses of Giddens' social-democratic politics

In the light of a critical account of Giddens' three recent books on politics (1994, 1998, 2000) this paper argues that it is possible to formulate a third way, that is different both form the ad hoc mixture of neo-liberal and conventional social-democratic recipes found in the Blair/Schroder type of discourse, as well as from Giddens' utopianism that is blind to political economy realities. This alternative version of the third way, guided by a non-economistic holistic framework should stress the continuous relevance of the Left-Right divide, ie, the continuities between early and late modernity and between the old and new emancipatory struggles against tyranny, exploitation and cultural/symbolic manipulation. It should also attempt to elaborate new reform proposals (in the area of the work, welfare, democracy, the life world) that take seriously into account the contradictions and present distribution of economic, political and cultural power, both on the national and the global level.